Insofar as this disclosure may contain material subject to copyright protection, the copyright owner has no objection to unlimited reproduction by anyone of the patent disclosure or any portion of the Patent Office file, but otherwise reserves all copyrights.
The invention generally relates to turkey calls and accessories therefor, usefull by hunters, photographers and game-watchers and the like to reproduce yelps, cackles, purrs, clucks and so on, to attract wild turkeys.
Turkey call devices are used to produce mimic turkey calls in hopes of inducing a live bird to respond and approach the caller. Use of these call devices is fairly an art form. A bird is easily spooked by inartful use of a given call device. A shortcoming with the conventional call devices is that each model characteristically has one "voice" or tone or resonance that characterizes that model. If an inartful caller has spooked a bird one day with a given model, even an artful caller will unlikely attract the bird in the next successive days with that same model. The bird will shy from that "voice." Also it is common practice for turkey callers to carry several calls with them because a turkey may ignore several "voices" before responding to a particular "voice." What is needed is an improvement which overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art and provides a caller with more versatility in the field for varying the tone, pitch or resonance of his or her call device.
According to one aspect of the invention, a wooden box call is modified such that its actuator top can flip over in order to allow presenting either of the opposite broad faces of the actuator top for rubbing against a sidewall edge of the box. The actuator top is preferably a composite or a bi-material in the sense that it is made of two different materials laminated together (eg., glued, bonded or even fastened or joined by whatever suitable means). That way the opposite broad faces are distinct from one another at least in the respect that they are different materials. Alternate use of one or the other broad faces of the actuator top for rubbing against a sidewall edge of the box provides at least two different varieties in the characteristic pitch obtained by the material of either.
According to another aspect of the invention, a peg or stylus can be formed with screw thread on a portion of it, and can be screwed into its a base or damper handle provided for it. That way the undamped length of extension of the stylus from where it is screwed into the base (or alternatively termed, eg., the damper-handle) can be adjusted, thereby changing the stylus's free length to become relatively longer or shorter. That way, a user can tune the pitch of the stylus by twisting it in deeper in its threaded socket or backing it out slightly in order to change its undamped free length. To put this in different words, a stylus-type scrape call is modified to allow adjustable pitch by the combination of a stylus and an associated damper-handle having a hole through it in which the stylus is inserted and secured. The damper-handle includes a clamping mechanism to allow its secure connection on the stylus to be relaxed and re-tightened for changing the position where the stylus is connected thereto, and thus changing the undamped free length of the stylus to become relatively shorter or longer as desired. That way, a user can adjust the pitch of the stylus by changing its undamped length of extension or retraction from the damper-handle, since generally the pitch goes higher with relative shortening of the undamped free length (and vice versa).
A number of additional aspects and objects will be apparent in connection with die following discussion of preferred embodiments and examples.